Open Text keeps up with Legal sector

Added By Alan Pelz-Sharpe at 22-Aug-2007 | Twitter: @eiwatch |

This past week ECM vendor Open Text announced that they will deliver a major upgrade to the acquired (ex-Hummingbird) eDocs technology for the Legal sector. Not earth-shattering news, but important news nonetheless.

For starters it will come as a big relief to the very substantial customer base in the Legal sector that Hummingbird had built up before its late 2006 acquisition by Open Text. Secondly, it reaffirms Open Text's commitment to building on other repositories where sensible -- in this case Microsoft -- the platform that dominates Legal. Open Text was among the first to wake up and smell the coffee regarding the MOI (Microsoft, Oracle, IBM) vendors playing to own the repository layer and it makes good sense for them to continue focusing on applications going forward.

Like all the other major ECM vendors, Open Text is going through a period of considerable change. And as the company moves to integrate the many pieces of their portfolio together, they become an ever more interesting firm to watch. Open Text always had decent technology and always points to a very good-looking roadmap -- the issue with them has always been execution. This kind of announcement signals to potential buyers that the company intends to continue supporting its major product lines.

Categories: Alan Pelz-Sharpe, Enterprise Content Management, Marketplace at Large, Selecting Technology, LiveLink ECM Suite, Legal